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On the following days, students were given the opportunity to explore the studio and production facilities at WQED Multimedia, the nation’s first public broadcasting station. WQED employee and PACES board member Joshua Lilly led the students in a discussion about the station’s history, the transformation of media over the 20th century and the station’s current role as a modern multimedia presence. Students were encouraged to connect the progress of media in their lifetimes, as seen in the case study of WQED, to the revolutionary changes in the spread of information and ideas in the 15th to 18th centuries.

With the kind assistance of WQED FM DJs Jim Cunningham and Anna Singer, the students learned about radio production and programming. They were even given the chance to speak on the air! PACES and the students want to thank the WQED staff and management for their openness, generosity and expertise!

PACES wishes to thank all the students and staff at SciTech who shared this interesting experience with us. We were very impressed with the ability to create real-world connections to the concepts they spent the year studying. Fun and educational programs like this help us fulfill our mission: Enrich Students. Support Teachers. Foster Community. ​If you would like PACES to help your class connect curriculum to the real world, please contact us.

Programs - Social Studies Connecting Curriculum and Community

PACES believes students of all ages benefit by connecting to the community. We strive to assist teachers in forming such connections by providing quality outreach programs at no cost. For the second consecutive year, we partnered with a local teacher for such programming. Jennifer Miller, social studies teacher at the Pittsburgh Science & Technology Academy (part of Pittsburgh Public Schools), contacted PACES and asked us to create an end-of-year program to supplement the curriculum during the last week of school. In June 2013, we provided resources for students to create a World History Exhibition at their school. (Read more about last year's program. >>) This year, in early June 2014, PACES president Emily Lilly led 10th- and 11th-grade students on a series of informative field trips designed to bring their World History curriculum out of the textbooks and into the real world.

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Students first participated in Global Goods and Grub: Interconnectedness on Craig Street, a scavenger hunt along Oakland’s diverse Craig Street business district. Breaking into groups, the students reviewed menus from restaurants serving various global cuisines and “window shopped” at stores specializing in different cultural items from around the world. To complete the scavenger hunt, students charted each item on a world map, and completed a list of the global connections they observed in the neighborhood. The students then discussed how these culinary, commercial and cultural connections related to the history they learned about in class, including the Colombian Exchange, the establishment of a British colony in India, and the modern move toward a globalized economy.

Pittsburgh Assistance Center for Educators and Students

"All teachers know that holding students' interest at the end of the year can be tough, to say the least, but PACES organized two wonderful experiences for us! After seeking global connections on Craig Street, one student took his friends there after school to show them all the amenities they never knew existed right in Oakland. Our second trip, to WQED, was a perfect example of PACES linking teachers and students to community resources. We had a blast seeing how programs are filmed and aired, and everyone from the station was so friendly! Both trips were fun for me and the students, while still teaching the kids something right up to the last day of school."